


if it's not a sin to say

by stag_von_simp



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Before Three Houses, But The Event Remains The Same, Catherine is Trash, F/F, Friendship, Gen, I Change One Detail About An Event, I Love Catherine, Internal Conflict, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Death, Nicknames, Ouch, Pining, Reminiscing, Rhea's Feelings Are Left Ambiguous, Somewhat canon divergent, That Event Being The Execution of Christophe Gaspard, Unrequited Love?, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21982222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag_von_simp/pseuds/stag_von_simp
Summary: there was a time when catherine charon was called "cat" by one special person in her life.now, she is called "my knight" by another person entirely, and she doesn't quite know what to make of it.
Relationships: Catherine & Christophe (Fire Emblem), Catherine/Rhea (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	if it's not a sin to say

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so it looks to me like nobody has written about catherine and christophe's friendship? which is an INJUSTICE, by the way, given the catherine/ashe support chain. and catherine herself isn't given any love, so...that's what this fic will do!!
> 
> also, yes, i know it's said that catherine hands christophe off to the other knights to keep her hands clean of his blood...but there's so much more angst potential if she doesn't. so that's what's going on here.
> 
> sorry if it's ooc--this is actually my first time writing any of these characters, so it may be a mess. 
> 
> and one more thing: if you didn't catch this in the tags, this does happen before the game does!!
> 
> despite all that, enjoy??? maybe??? :D

He used to call her Cat.

This is the only thought that dares bruise through her focus, plump and annoying as a flower swelling through the meager cracks on a concrete carpet. 

Christophe Gaspard is crumpled at her feet, his head bowed. He’s wobbling on his knees, as if he could trip forward and taint her boots with the graze of his hair at any point.

Long hair, as it always was. Impractical. Usually he could muster the dignity and the drive to bind it back, let it dangle over his shoulder like a single, flapping wing. Not for this grim occasion, it seems, seeing as stray hairs drizzle around his eyes. (She’s secretly thankful for the cloud the sloppy strands provide; this way, she would have to rake them from his forehead herself to meet his eyes, and that would be  _ devastating _ .)

Christophe doesn’t have a weapon; his fingers are scrabbling around his belt, rubbing the fabric with such vigor he could pull away with his fingertips aflame if he continued too long. As if a bit of friction can sprout a sword. As if any sword he could summon would be a match for Thunderbrand or the vengeance shredding her heart.

Catherine and Christophe discussed the sword, at least once, if she remembers correctly. A night she couldn’t sleep, so she slunk to his dormitory--pulling through the rain, feeling it frosting her neck, gluing her hair to her shoulders, her nightclothes melted to her skin just to reach the boy’s building--and demanded he let her in.

Christophe hadn’t argued then; he’d relented with the slightest angle of a smile, as if he’d been hoping she’d join him for the shift the storm and the stars chose to fill. 

(Sort of like how he doesn’t scuffle now. Sort of like how he relents now, except there isn’t even a delusion of a smile on his face this time around.)

(Catherine wheezes, trying to breathe despite the  _ shame  _ in her throat she can’t seem to uncork. She thinks it may be shame, even if there’s no point in it. It’s too late to regret this.)

(She’s made her choices. She would make identical ones, if time spluttered, if she was offered a second chance.)

(She will choose her Rhea every single time.)

She can’t seem to soothe the waves of her memory, so she lets them crash. She simply lets them wail themselves raw. She gives them permission to destroy each other--and, by extension, destroy  _ her. _

Catherine remembers launching herself onto Christophe’s bed that fifteen years ago--back first, flopping down at the foot of the mattres and wriggling into its embrace with as much energy as she did everything, back then. A groan punched past her lips, a volume of emotions stashed within the single sound.

Christophe comprehended every scribble of meaning in her grunt--as he always could. “Storm keeping you awake?” He’d cocked his head as he’d asked, stumbling back over to the bed and perching lightly on the opposite side of it, near the pile of untouched pillows.

She could see a book sprawled out on his desk. He was always so absorbed, snatching novel after novel from the Academy’s book-framed sanctuary--sorry,  _ library,  _ though he’d always insisted it was a sanctuary and calling it a mere “library” was the worst dismissal of any she could say--and keeping his dark nights lamp-lit and lyrical. She was always telling him to sleep more, even if she would train until her knees dissolved all the while.

They spent that night grazing every topic that floated past them, no matter how insignificant. They skimmed the philosophical, gushed about her beloved blade for nearly twenty minutes. They teased a thousand subjects in between. Neither slept away so much as the moment it would take for a star to shatter. They kept each other thoroughly entertained. And he never once called her  _ Catherine _ ; all through the night, her name was Cat.

She and Christophe were, back then, all the other could ever yearn for.

But Catherine’s not sure if she misses those days, in this moment, ripping the veil of memories from where it fogs up her vision into two clean scraps to hand off to the wind and the silence. She’s not sure if she can go back to  _ loving  _ the pathetic man stooping at her feet, not speaking a word for his life or his death. 

She’s not sure if she can love  _ nothing,  _ now that she’s seen  _ everything  _ looming before her.

And in the moment,  _ everything  _ glides into the clearing, skating even on solid earth. And  _ everything  _ is so beautiful Catherine feels her chest heave, lungs swimming in an affection so palpable it boils fluidly.

“Lady Rhea,” Catherine greets her new companion. She wrestles Thunderbrand free from where it sags by her hip. “I got him.”

Christophe finally rears around, head popping up, posture flung into something a bit more acceptable for someone in the presence of a bishop--even if this person was plotting said bishop’s downfall only days ago. “Archbishop, ma’am,” he clips out.

But Rhea refuses to feed him so much as half a glance. Her eyes stay stapled to Catherine’s. “I am by no means surprised,” the muse herself muses. “I am proud, Catherine. Already I am feeling more secure.”

There’s the usual amount of color blessing her cheekbones--there’s no pallor, no worry soaking everything in a clammy sheen. And Catherine feels like she’s teetering on the back of a wayward stallion, bouncing without a care, if the stallion was plated with gold. If this stallion was a manifestation of all the euphoria, the relief, the  _ pride  _ leaking through the urgency of the fight she’d been expecting from Christophe.

“What would you like me to do with him?” Catherine asks.

“After everything he’s done, or has been meaning to do…” Rhea’s voice wanders, chewed to nothing by the emotions that twitch across her face minutely. “Is it wrong to wish him death, Catherine?”

“Absolutely not, milady.” Just a little too much excitement invades Catherine’s tone; veins of adrenaline ache in every word. “If it’s death you sentence, then it’s death I deliver. And, if it’s not a sin to say it, death’s definitely what he deserves.”

Rhea crams her fist against her lips--her every movement nothing more than a flutter of a swan's plumage, so delicate, and Catherine internally vows a thousand times to keep every movement of Rhea’s so serene, for as long as they both shall live. 

A laugh jingles in Catherine’s ears. Rhea’s giggling.  _ Ah.  _ “Oh, Catherine, it is not sin, I assure you. I’ve always appreciated how honest you can be. If only we were all so honest...If only we were all able to be.”

Catherine pretends not to notice the current of sadness that pummels across Rhea’s expression. The fist slumps back to her side.

“Oh, don’t mind me. It’s like I can never stop my contemplating,” Rhea sighs. “Well. I guess I should leave you to do as you dictate. I trust you and your sword, my knight.

Then Rhea retreats from the scene--Catherine knows the archbishop hates to watch blood’s slow trek from a wound, but it still feels a bit like abandonment, seeing as Rhea keeps all the warmth in the world clambering in her wake. 

“Well? Aren’t you going to do it?” The voice--gruff, jagged, uprooted from the broken throat of a broken man--spooks Catherine back into her skin; blood howls into her ears, and she snaps her eyes down. Christophe peers up at her, eyes sculpted silver. “It won’t hurt. I know where your allegiances lie, now. Do whatever you want, Cat.”

Catherine lets the pang shudder through her blood, like a bang of thunder. She fishes Thunderbrand from the belt slung on her hips and ignores the resistance in her stiff wrist.

“I will, Chris,” she promises him. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, but I’m not at all sorry for you.” The truth dives from her tongue without her agreement, but her shoulders spring up with relief. Only now does she realize they were ready to cave with the burden before.

She finally understands now:

_ She’s sorry it came to this. _

_ But she’s not sorry for him. _

Just thinking it feels like the first desperate, freeing gasp after a brawl.

Thunderbrand plummets--catching only a second later, right beside Christophe’s left shoulder blade--blood gags from the cut she draws, and there’s something planted in her throat, but she doesn’t care to discover what it is right now. Because she is not sorry. (Unless she is. Which she isn’t. She can’t be.)

And she does not miss him. (Unless she does. Which she doesn’t. Because missing him is blasphemy. It’s as simple as that.)

She does not at all miss the husk of her friend--the friend who expired so quickly, and so willingly. She can’t let a breakdown over someone who likely hasn’t existed for years slash through her defenses.

Her attention leaps from the body folded at her feet, chasing down the path of Rhea’s exit. Adrenaline ripples beneath her skin anew. She can’t let a breakdown over _anyone_ stab through the dam she’s fortified after years of working to cut herself off from anyone who isn’t Rhea.

Even if  _ anyone  _ is him _ ,  _ her best friend, the boy who cast off even his books for her. The only boy in the world who’d ever dared call her  _ Cat.  _

The slumped heap, blood sprayed across his clothes, at her feet.

What does she care for the sily nickname, anyway? 

Thunderbrand is speared back into her belt. It nestles her thigh, pulsing with its familiar life.

And she decides, then and there, that the only nickname that could ever matter to her again is  _ my knight _ , as she deserts the bloodied corpse in the woods sulking beyond Garreg Mach, which will be her home for eternity--or as long as her lithe heart with cheeks like pink petals thrives within its walls.


End file.
